


A Kiss With a Fist

by drinkginandkerosene



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Desperate Kissing, F/M, Jealousy, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 06:52:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkginandkerosene/pseuds/drinkginandkerosene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Glimmer dead, Clove is wondering exactly how much Cato was acting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Kiss With a Fist

Glimmer lay dead between them, and Clove couldn’t quite bring herself to care. Not that she cared about very many things in her life, but even if she did, Glimmer would not be one of them. She was a silly, vapid girl, with little sense or… Killer instinct. Though, even though Clove would deny it, that wasn’t the real reason she despised the blonde.

She glanced over at Cato before stooping and ripping the bag pack off the girl’s stinking corpse. Tracker Jackers worked quickly, and her body was already decomposing. Cato was frowning at the girl, and Clove wondered with a sudden stab of insecurity, if the acting was more than acting. Then he spoke and the weight moved from her chest.

“The bitch from twelve took the bow.” Clove only needed another glance at the ground to realise what he said was true.

“Great. Now we’re dealing with a threat.” 

Cato chuckled slightly, dispersing the thick tension that had lay between them since everything had went so badly wrong with them attempting to stake out Katniss. Cato had a tendency to lapse into brooding whenever something didn’t go his way. If you were wise, you kept out of his way and waited for it do die down. Though, it never seemed to die down very far. Seeing him fight was almost a frightening experience. He was at his most raw then, and his most furious. It seemed like every piece of anger he ever had, he stored away to use so he could rip people apart. Clove was different she supposed. She didn’t feel angry when she killed people.

She didn’t feel anything.

“Only if she sees us coming. A bow isn’t much good up close.” A fair point.

“We have to find her first. C’mon.” It was one thing tracking the inexperienced kids of the other districts, but she was a hunter. Clove didn’t like that. A hunter was too close to a killer. That was the Career’s job, quite literally.

They didn’t walk in silence, what did they have to be afraid of? They were the predators, the ones the others would have nightmares about. It was funny in a way, when they train you, they don’t tell you how completely isolated you would become. Not that Clove minded. How could you know you were lonely when you were never anything different?

Growing up in District 2 was hard, and dangerous, and utterly exhilarating. Not everyone could be picked to be a Career of course; mainly the richer families would pay for a child to be trained. And if they died during that training? Well, it was simply a bad investment. That’s how she had met Cato of course. They were in the same class. Sparring partners. The day they had met, Clove had a knife to his throat before he could blink and the class held it’s breath, expecting her neck to be broken in milliseconds.

He laughed instead.

He laughed more than people thought. He was laughing now as they started a fire, settled down for the night. They talked, avoiding the one subject Clove was dying to talk about. It was like a constant thrum in her head, GlimmerGlimmerGlimmer. Clove wasn’t idiotic of course. She knew it was for the cameras. That stunt the twelve tributes pulled was a complete game changer. It turned a contest of skill into a popularity one, reducing the entire affair to the plot of a romance. And Cato didn’t like unfair advantages. So he’d fake it too, step it up a notch by picking someone from another district. Hopefully that’s what happened. Hopefully it wasn’t real. Hopefully.

“Clove?” She looked up, away from the fire and at Cato, who apparently had been talking on without her attention. “What are you thinkin’ about?” He actually looked concerned, odd. He didn’t usually enquire after anyone’s health much.

“Nothing.”

“You’re so obvious.” Clove rolled her eyes.

“That’s simply not true Blondie.”

“Fine.” He huffed, blowing out his cheeks. “No, come on, tell me.”

“Glimmer.” The words were out her mouth before she could stop them, think about them. He looked surprised, raising his eyebrows.

“Clove, you’ve seen dead people before. I mean, yeah, trackers are nasty but-“

“Not like that!” She interrupted, offended. “Jeez, what do you take me for?”

“Then what are you talking about?”

She decided to approach it diplomatically, try to involve herself as little as possible. Keeping her emotions separate wasn’t an entirely new thing after all. If she even had feelings. It was hard to tell sometimes. You weren’t allowed to cry at the training academy. You couldn’t show any weakness either, not for a second. You just had to work, work and make people afraid of you.

“Aren’t you torn up? I mean, you and her seemed to be pretty close…” She raised her eyes off her sparse meal of rabbit sneakily, gauging his reaction. He was staring at her, apparently mystified.

“Don’t tell me you actually believed that bullshit? I thought you were smarter than that.”

Heat flushed over her, and embarrassment.

“Well, you looked pretty fucking into it Cato.” He laughed, derisive and harsh.

“What are you, jealous?”

Her silence was enough, and she scrabbled to her feet, not thinking for once in her life, just knowing she had to get away from him, because his rejection would be worse than anything the other tributes could throw at her. “Clove, wait-“ But she was already up, half-running, and it was a full twenty seconds before he caught up with her, turning her around and shoving her back into a tree, so hard the bark scraped her back, and as she opened her mouth to gasp in pain, he kissed her. His mouth was hot and desperate, his hands usually used for ripping others apart cupped around her face delicately in a gentleness contrasting with the ferocity of his kisses. She stood for a moment in pure shock, him towering over her tiny frame. And then she kissed him back, hands so tight on his shoulders her nails dug into the fabric. Their mouths worked together for mere seconds before fighting for dominance over the other, all tongue and teeth and overpowering heat. Surprisingly, he yielded first, and the kiss turned deeper, knocking the very breath from her chest. The hands in her hair, previously tugging, turned soft, gentle, and when the kiss finally broke in what could have been minutes, or years, Cato allowed his forehead to rest gently against Clove’s.

“See? It was nothing. Glimmer, was nothing.” She could only nod, and all she could think was ‘What have we done?’

“Cato… Only one of us can win. One of us has to die, what are we doing?” Her voice wasn’t as strong as she wanted it to be, and it shook. She might have been imagining it, but as his hands went to her hips, keeping her close, she thought they shook too.

“This is what we were raised for Clove. It’s an honour. We wanted to die for the Capitol; why else would we have volunteered? We wanted to die Clove.” The thought frightened her beyond all measure, and she did her best to deny the truth.

“No, I wanted to bring victory-“

“How many times has District Two won Clove? Dozens. Everyone knows we’re the best. We…Either both of us are going to die or one of us is going to wish we had.”

The dank forest suddenly seemed very dark, and too large, too large for two frightened children.


End file.
